“Let’s make sure we are leading the charge with empathy and diligence because fear and anger never win the race.”

During her opening monologue she appeared to make a dig at First Lady Melania Trump when she said her first initiative as “first lady” of the ceremony would be to tackle cyber bullying, “because I’m yet to see any progress on that issue”.

She also joked that the dystopian story of misogyny The Handmaid’s Tale is a “documentary”.

William H Macy was the first winner of the night, bagging the outstanding performance by a male actor in a comedy series for his role of Frank Gallagher in Shameless.